Heart of Madness
by Cho'gall
Summary: Kastina, a draenei paladin, encounters a demonic eredar lord upon the Broken Isles during a skirmish with minions of the Burning Legion, and finds out swiftly that he has turned against his masters, but for unknown reasons. Seeing within him an ally of convenience, for a short time at least, he in turn sees the draenei as merely a tool for his vengeance. An uneasy alliance follows.
1. Chapter 1: Trial of the Kin-Slayer

1: Trial of the Kin-slayer

"Vis'caerath... Eredar warlock, and lord of the Burning Legion... You have been captured, bound, and brought before us for the treacherous crime of murdering thousands of your own" Kil'jaeden spoke, in front of the many hundreds of demons that watched the trial unfold, underneath the smoldering, green sky, in the hellish, barren, burned landscape of the planet they stood on. The court, consisting of all manners of dreadlords, shivarra, succubi, ered'ruin, and annihilons, to small imps and voidwalkers, watched their lord speaking to the accused eredar in question, whose large, muscular, red-skinned, armored form stood, covered in magic-binding, tempered chains, in front of them all.

Vis'caerath had large, fan-like plates lining his forehead, multiple, small, spike-like horns along his brow, pointed ears, and possessed four, long tendrils, each decorated with small, golden rings, that made up beard-like extensions on the sides of his jaw, while a tuft of black hair made an actual beard on the tip of his chin. His mouth bore several fanged teeth, and his face was set in a grimace, to go with his demonic appearence. At the end of his long, thick legs were cloven hooves, and he had a large, muscular tail as well. For armor, on either side of his head was a large pauldron, around his mostly bare chest was the straps holding them in place, his forearms were garbed in heavy gauntlets, covering his legs were armored plates, and around the lower half of his body was a decorated waistguard.

Aside from the red skin, and fearsome appearance, he, like most man'ari eredar, had more than a passing resemblance to their draenei cousins.

Kil'jaeden, the supreme leader of the Burning Legion himself, sat on an enormous, twisted throne, and was wreathed in black, smoking fumes strong enough to kill any mortal who took but a single wiff of it. The only recognizable parts of him visible to the masses were the monstrous shape that hid behind the dark cloud, and the two, glowing yellow eyes that pierced through it.

"You are here for the killing of several venerated eredar, high-ranking nathrezim, and annihilon pit lords, as well as the murder of well over a legion of loyal soldiers who tried to stop you..." he said again, his deep, venerable voice as seamless as wine, and as commanding as any king or emperor. "...Do you have any regret over your fit of insanity? Do you have any reason for us as to why you did this act, before your final judgement has passed?"

"I..." Vis'caerath started, in a seemingly solemn way, before suddenly lifting his head, his face's expression changing into a malicious glare of happiness, his fanged mouth grinning. "...Regret nothing! I shall tell you not what I witnessed that has convinced me that we are all fit only to be killed as violently as possible, but I will say that I took pleasure in the crime I committed! I took the utmost of pleasure in every second of it!"

The booming, mad laughter that followed echoed throughout the silent area, heard by every demon to inhabit the room, including Kil'jaeden. Before the chortling could cease, each of them had let out cries of outrage and hatred in the purest of its form, each directed at the traitor.

"Kill him, and impale his head on an iron spike!" a pit lord thundered, planting one of the ends of his double-bladed halberd into the ground as he slammed it down, soil scattering from the impact.

"Tear his arms off, and give him to the hounds! Set him as an example!" a multi-armed shivarra shouted, in more of a screech than a voice.

"Torture him!" a dreadlord yelled out in his poisonous tongue, shaking a clawed fist into the air. "Make him suffer for an eternity!"

"Take his eyes! Take his eyes!" a lowly imp chanted with extreme fervor, as it jumped up and down from the rock it stood from, a sadistic look in its bulging eyes. Each of the ideas for the warlock's punishment were silenced no sooner than they were brought up, as Kil'jaeden raised his enormous hand, instantly quieting the crowd. They all looked up to him, as he took the silence they gave him to his advantage, and began to think, stroking his gnarled chin with a claw from behind the smoke surrounding him. Soon after, when he had a final idea in his head, he pointed to the doomguard that served as warden, and beckoned him, silent as death, to approach. Without hesitation, the creature obeyed.

When he was within a few feet of his master, Kil'jaeden whispered something of unholy purpose into his ear, in a volume too low for Vis'caerath to hear. Closing his eyes, and nodding in agreement, the doomguard turned from Kil'jaeden, and walked up to Vis'caerath, withdrawing the knife it had in a sheath by its side. Doing exactly as told, he thrust the weapon into the eredar's stomach once he was within arm's distance.

"Grk-!" Vis'caerath gasped, as the blade hit its mark. As he keeled over, fiery, orange, luminescent blood was spat out of his mouth, and landed on the ground with a steamy hiss, while more leaked from his wound. As this was happening, the doomguard pulled the dagger out, stained with blood, and sheathed it away before taking out the key it possessed, and, with a huff of disapproval, unshackled Vis'caerath's many chains and handcuffs.

Once the objective had been completed, and the shackles had fallen to the ground with a metal clatter, Kil'jaeden himself stood up from his seat, and stepped out from the smoke, revealing his horrible, massive, red, winged, horned form to every being in the room. Many of the lesser demons trembled at the sight of his fearsome visage, and even the highest-ranking ones couldn't help but let a chill race up their spines.

"I may have a use for you in the future, "Kin-slayer..."" the Deceiver bellowed, before flexing a mighty, clawed hand, casting a spell. Vis'caerath was only able to look up from his wound in time to see a large, purple form of magical energy, created by his former master, begin to appear in front of him, before it became obvious that it was a portal.

"...But for now, I banish you from this realm with this painful parting gift! I banish you, never to return, never to be able to even set foot on any world belonging to the Burning Legion! BEGONE, TRAITOR!"

With those words, the wounded eredar felt himself being, slowly, dragged away from where he stood by a powerful vacuum that the portal created. Struggling against its growing strength, he attempted to shuffle away, but quickly realized how futile the effort was.

"I will kill you, Deceiver!" Vis'caerath vowed, screaming at the top of his lungs, as he continued to try his hardest to resist being sucked into the portal. "Mark these words, and prepare! No matter how long or arduous it may take, I will kill you! I will KILL YOU ALL! I WILL KI-"

He was unable to finish his sentence, as he finally lost his hoofed footing, and disappeared into the portal, which promptly closed behind him in a puff of smoke.

* * *

Kastina ducked her head under the rock she hid behind, as the orc warlock she was currently facing sent a shadow bolt heading her way. The screaming, purple skull smashed into her makeshift cover, where it exploded upon impact, sending a crack into the stone. Wiping back some of her own sweat-soaked, black hair that was covering the front of her face, the paladin peeked her horned head out once more, and saw the aged orc ready another spell.

For the last three hours, she had been fighting against the cabal of warlocks that she had discovered in the middle of Elwynn Forest, by herself. All that was left of them was the orc she was currently facing, but he was different from the others. He was the ringleader, as seen by his skill with spells, and the fact that he was the only one of them left alive, that was not slain by her hammer or magic.

"I will smite you, you foolish paladin! Tremble before me!" the orc cried out, his long, gray beard flowing in the wind, as he swung his bent, wooden staff in the air with one hand, and sent another shadow bolt with his other, breaking part of the boulder with an explosion when it hit, but not enough to reveal Kastina.

"It's not the first time I've heard that one..." she groaned to herself, in her accented voice, as she remembered back to the hundreds of times she faced off against powerful, but arrogant servants of darkness, such as this one.

After seeing that she wasn't coming out from behind the rock, the orc began to speak in an ancient, evil language, as the tip of his staff began to glow purple. The moment he finished his spell, a purple flash went out in front of him, before clearing, revealing what he had summoned.

Before him stood the shape of a tall, powerful, pale-skinned felguard, dressed in the abysmal black armor of the Burning legion. In its powerful, wide hands was a nasty-looking, large, jagged axe. As it looked around at the new environment it was in with its helmeted head, the orc immediately set to barking his orders to his newest, bound minion.

"You, go find the draenei that hides behind the rock, and end her! Do as I command!" he shouted to the demon, pointing to the boulder in question, his voice beginning to strain as his age caught up with him. Without hesitation, the tall creature readied its axe, and began to approach where the young draenei hid, following the order fluently. When it was within feet of her, she set to action before it could instead.

"Raagh!" Kastina roared, swinging her hammer in its direction, as she jumped from the cover. The felguard, thanks to thousands of years of training, saw the attack coming from a mile away, and parried the hammer with its axe. As the two fighters began to duke it out, the orc, after gathering himself from the energy used to summon the creature, turned, and began to hobble his hunched frame into the cave he was standing in front of, in an attempt to hide and prepare.

Within the span of the minute they fought, Kastina managed to strike the felguard several times in its side and chest with powerful blows from her weapon, but it continued its assault on her, unimpeded. The felguard raised, and dropped its blade at the draenei, but she was able to raise her hammer's head, blocking the attack. She then proceeded to shove the axe upward with a grunt of effort, and then raised her leg, hitting the demon in the stomach with a surprisingly powerful kick, sending him back several meters.

Immediately setting about to focus her mind, Kastina raised a gauntleted arm, and started to speak, reciting an incantation she was all-too-familiar with, as a bright sigil formed over her forehead, and began to float there, magical, holy power welling up inside her.

"By the Light, I banish you from this plane of existence!" she shouted, a burst of light emerging from her hand. A bright, white beam flew from her gloved palm, and struck the felguard in its unarmored, gray-skinned chest. With a shocked bellow, the demon was sent, crying out, back to the Twisting Nether from whence it came, in a bright flash of white, disappearing from sight. After collecting herself, and taking in several deep breaths of air, Kastina turned to the cave she saw the warlock disappear in, and glared at it.

"Your turn..." she muttered, as she began to head toward the cavern's entrance, intent on ending the evil being within.

It was a very short time before she came upon the orc, who had unwittingly cornered himself in the back of it. After seeing no other escape option, he turned with a begrudging acceptance at the situation he was in, at Kastina.

"I'll... I _will_ end you!" he growled, trying to sound as intimidating as possible to the paladin. He raised his staff, and a purple glow began to envelope its tip, as he began to speak in an unholy, evil tongue, reciting the words to an invocation that would send a blast of deadly, fel energy at his enemy. Not giving him the pleasure of finishing, Kastina, using all of the strength at her disposal, lunged forward on her hooved feet as fast as she could, toward the warlock, hammer at the ready.

With a massive swing, the hammer cleaved through the staff, breaking half of the ancient, wooden construct into splinters. The orc, with a cry of horror, fell onto his back as he felt his magic leave him.

"No... no, no, no!" the warlock cried out, as he sat back up, his red eyes scanning the broken wood on the ground. "You... How dare you! I'll... I'll..."

As he continued his whimpering, Kastina slowly walked up to him, and raised her hammer overhead, set to bring it down on the orc one, last time. She was about to do so, when all of a sudden, she heard a sudden "fizzing" sound coming from overhead, causing her to hesitate.

Perplexed by the noise, she was only able to look up, over her shoulder, a confused expression on her face, before a large, heavy shape hit against her smaller body with great force. Letting out a small cry of surprise, she was knocked to the ground several feet away, and her hammer was sent flying from her grasp, where it deflected off of the stone wall nearby with a metal thud, and grated off rock as it slid across the ground.

Kastina shook her head as she recovered from the blow, and sat up. When she opened her dizzied, bright blue eyes, she saw a new, red figure, who was also apparently just sitting up, recuperating from the same blow, that had joined her and the orc, and was currently lying between them. When she realized what the red-skinned, muscular, armored, draenei-like creature that stood before her was, she let out a gasp of complete surprise, just as he looked up at her in return, his glaring, ember-like, yellow eyes slowly bringing her to his attention, exposing his face, and the orange liquid, presumably blood, that ran down his lip.

It was a man'ari eredar, garbed in the armor of a lord. And he was wounded, as seen by the great injury on his stomach.

And he didn't look very happy.


	2. Chapter 2: Of Man'ari and Draenei

2: Of Man'ari and Draenei

An echo rang through the cave's stagnant air, as the man'ari that stood before Kastina let out an unsettling cough, blood dripping from his mouth. The large, bleeding wound she could clearly see on his stomach quickly convinced her as to why he appeared in such a poor condition.

"Draenei..." he muttered, gritting his teeth as he spotted her, whose jaw still hung open in surprise, and was slowly getting to her feet. Vis'caerath turned his head when he heard another sound from behind himself, just as he finished picking himself off from the ground, and spotted an aged orc, dressed in a black robe, who was looking at him with a crooked smile from behind his gray beard.

"Szilard must have sent you..." the elderly figure said, as he got a better footing on the stone ground. "I am deeply thankful of your assistance, eredar lord."

Wiping the still-steaming, fresh ichor from his lip and chin with a hand, he approached the warlock, uncaring of who this "Szilard" he mentioned was, before speaking.

"Do you serve... The Burning Legion?" he asked, in a deep, intimidating voice.

"Yes, I do" the orc replied, both proudly, and humbly, as he bowed his head in a manner akin to a lowly sycophant. The second he said that, the eredar shot his hand out, and wrapped his clawed fingers around the orc's throat, before lifting him rapidly into the air, as he let out a yelp of terror.

"Good" was all the eredar spoke, as his grip started to tighten, until the orc began to turn an unhealthy shade of purple seconds later, his mouth open, and gasping for air, as his hands clawed, desperately, at Vis'caerath's own. Once foam began to froth from his maw, the eredar, with a serious look painted on his face, but satisfying thoughts rolling through his head, finally snapped the aged creature's wretched neck with a quick, powerful thrust.

Vis'caerath dropped the warlock's limp body to the ground, before smirking a grin that exposed some of his teeth when he remembered the draenei he saw only a few seconds before. Slowly, he turned to Kastina, who by this time was on her feet, her hammer reclaimed in her grasp, and ready for a fight, as seen by her stance. He could almost feel the Light energy in the air, that seemed to come from her, and that, combined with the armor, is what told him she was a paladin; a breed of warrior he was more than familiar with.

"This plane... Is Azeroth, I presume?" he asked her, in a much more civil, but no less menacing voice.

"Yes, but I'm going to send you back to the Twisting Nether... Where you belong" she responded, in as calm of a tone as she could muster, while her face betrayed how she felt facing a man'ari eredar; a member of the species that served as the arch-foes of her own kind, the draenei, even among all the demons of the burning legion.

Vis'caerath tried to laugh at the threat, but groaned in pain from the still-festering wound in his stomach, and bent over slightly.

"So... You wish to fight me then, paladin?" he asked again, as he regained his composure, and looked back at her. She quickly replied, her voice lower than before.

"What I "wish," is to kill you."

Vis'caerath, his smile replacing itself with a frown, raised one of his arms slightly. A magical flame began to cover the hand it belonged to, and grew in length, poking from it, and forming a long shape.

After the flame dissipated, it revealed a large, double-edged, fiery sword in his grip that reeked of brimstone. He grabbed ahold of its handle with his other hand, and lowered it slightly, as if showing off its rectangular blade.

"You will die trying" he finally spoke, in a disturbingly quiet, near-whisper of a voice. A warm, but twisted aura of fel energy started to envelope him when he finished his sentence, radiating off of his body like the heat of a fire. Kastina backed away in reaction, the corrupting energies giving her a sick feeling in her gut, while Vis'caerath started, slowly, forward.

With a glare of defiance, the paladin brought her hammer in front of herself, revealing the multiple symbols that decorated it. After closing her eyes, and speaking a quick, powerful prayer, the weapon began to glow brightly. Within moments, a wave of light burst out from the hammer, and through the air, cleansing it, and causing the eredar to bring a hand to shield his face from the almost-blinding rays. The sheer amount of Light magic started to give him a migraine.

Ignoring the minor pain, and roaring, Vis'caerath rushed forward, raising his sword overhead, and bringing it down on his smaller, blue-skinned foe. Kastina, unafraid of his advance, reeled her weapon back, and swung it forward, hitting off of the blade with enough force to make both weapons to sway back after causing a loud clanging echo, as ember-like sparks flew in multiple directions. Repeatedly, their weapons clashed in a similar way, swinging back-and-forth with powerful, armor-shattering strokes, but neither seemed to gain ground over the other.

As they fought, the draenei found herself being pushed back by the massive blows her foe dished out, until they had both exited the cave, and were in the forest. Every step the fel-empowered man'ari took in it, the grass underneath his hoofed feet turned brown, and wilted away. Kastina was forced to duck her head as the sword swung in a straight, horizontal line, and sliced through a nearby rock, cutting through it as if was wet paper. She used the moments that it took the eredar to recuperate to hit him once, quickly, in the side, and then ran back, seeking to find an advantageous point where she could decide her next move.

Despite how little the blow appeared to be, Vis'caerath felt as though he had been hit by a punch from a gronn. The the obviously enchanted hammer, combined with his still-bleeding wound, caused him to fall on one knee, taking in a deep wheeze of a breath.

"By Sargeras's flaming eyebrows, that mallet hurts..." he groaned, as he stood back up, trying to make the injury look as non-damaging as possible. The sword he had been using disappeared in a small ball of smoke as he talked, vanishing back to the realm from which he summoned it.

"The Light runes on my hammer gives its user tremendous power if the reason for using it is deemed righteous" Kastina spoke back, as she panted. "My reason is to defeat you, man'ari."

The paladin prepared for another charge, but just as she uttered out a roar, the eredar acted first.

"Enough!" he grunted, throwing a hand forward, as his eyes started to shine a brighter shade of yellow. A purple torrent of magic rushed out of his palm, and hit Kastina, who let out a surprised gasp as she found herself paralyzed, her hammer falling out of her hands. Raising the same hand, Vas'caerath lifted the paladin into the air.

"This fight is over, draenei" he growled, as he brought her struggling form closer to himself. "I am lord Vas'caerath. I have no time to squander with paladins like yourself! I-"

Kastina found herself dropping to the ground like a stone, as the stream of purple energy holding her suddenly disappeared, almost instantly. She saw the eredar cough up more blood than before and stumble, clutching at his stomach wound with both hands, and only then realized how much paler his crimson skin had become since first seeing him. Knowing what she had to do next, and wasting no time, the paladin closed her eyes, and focused her mind. A sigil formed over her forehead as she prepared to unleash an incantation of banishment.

"I banish you from Azeroth, accursed man'ari" she spoke, calmly, after a few seconds, as she raised her hand to the demon. All Vas'caerath could do in his weakened state was watch in horror as his enemy cast her spell, and a beam of light shot forward soon after, hitting him directly.

To Kastina's surprise, however, instead of vanishing like she had seen happen to so many other demons, the eredar was sent flying from where he stood by the blast, as if being struck by a bolt of lightning. He smashed into the roof of the nearby cave's entrance, and plummeted to the ground, where he landed with a painful-sounding thud. Everything went still, and the sound of quiet went throughout the forest.

"That's a first..." the draenei said to herself, wearily, as she picked her hammer up, and walked up to the unmoving eredar, who lied face-first, on the grassy ground. Aside from the occasional twitch, he was completely still. Deciding to test how out of it he was, she placed the head of her hammer on his armored shoulder, and, after a huff of effort, used it to flip him onto his back, only to see that his eyes were closed and mouth hung ajar, drool leaking from it.

After a few minutes of waiting, to see if he would wake up so she could put him out again, Kastina finally let her guard down, for the first time in what felt like an entire day, and sat on a nearby rock, fatigue finally getting to her.

After a rather long breather, her glowing, monochromatic eyes focused on her fallen foe the entire time, she brushed her disheveled, black hair and cranial tendrils back with her hand, before placing it around a small, enchanted locket attached to a gold necklace around her neck. She brought it up, slowly, to her mouth, until it was no more than mere centimeters away from her lips, and silently whispered several words to it, as if out of paranoia of someone nearby attempting to hear in on it.

It was less than a minute later before she heard a familiar noise that could only be described as a mechanical "sizzle." A circular mass of purple energy suddenly manifested in front of her with a hiss, in the shape of a void-based portal. She let out a derisory, barely-noticeable smile as she saw two figures exit through the it.

The first being to walk out was an ethereal. He was covered in the enchanted, white wrappings that gave him a mummy-like appearance, and held his true, pinkish-purple energy form together. There was gray, silver-lined hood over his head, leading to the equally-colored cloak that covered his body, and in one hand was a long, steel staff of a priest.

The second was a voidwalker, or, to be more precise, a void lord, as seen by its sheer size, and the armor covering the chest, shoulders, and back of its blue-and-purple-hued, formless body. If it were any other void creature, Kastina would have attacked it on the spot, but she knew this one well.

"Good to see you two could both come, Sa'kesh and Atrophos" she greeted, speaking to the ethereal, and void lord, respectively.

"We came as soon as you called, Kastina..." the ethereal spoke to his ally, as he came to a stop, and began to lean on his staff. "Is our extracurricular help required for once? Or..."

The energy-based being's words trailed off, when the void lord tapped his shoulder with a large, shadowy claw. Turning, he saw his colleague motioning to the battered, semi-unconscious form of the eredar lord lying on the grass, and, out of curiosity, approached it without a second thought.

"Well..." he started, in as surprised of a sound that his whispering, monotonous voice could make. "I'd pay good money to see how you took this one down."

"He was summoned out of nowhere while I was facing the final warlock of a cabal I found here" she said to them, as the ethereal bent where his knees would be, and began to examine the demon with his large, shapeless companion. "As soon as he appeared, he killed the warlock, and fought me, before, apparently, succumbing to a wound he came here with. I tried to banish him, but..."

"Peculiar..." Atrophos interrupted, his voice a long, deep, booming, echo. "It would seem this lord was stripped of much of his power upon arrival to this plane. I Wonder..."

"How did you know he's a lord?" she asked.

"The details on the armor reek of a higher status..." the void lord replied, before the two finished their observations. "I've seen many like it before. It is almost as if he was being exiled here as a form of punishment. Man'ari eredar are not known for gaining the disapproval of the Legion very often, especially high-ranking ones, and even so, the Deceiver would simply execute them. Unless they prove useful in other fields, of course..."

"So the question is: What did he do that was bad enough for banishment?" Sa'kesh finished, rubbing where his chin would be, deep in thought.

"Do you wish for him to return... Alive...?" Atrophos spoke again, looking back to Kastina with his two blank, orb-like, white eyes. "I've not tried such a delicacy as man'ari before..."

"No" Kastina replied, in a strict, and partially unsettled manner. "I asked you to come here to bring him to the void prison, in one piece. You're free to siphon any fel energies he'll give off, though."

"Fair... Trade..." the void lord spoke, the quaking sound of his words practically vibrating through the air, as he grabbed the eredar by the leg, and slowly dragged him across the ground, to the portal, soon vanishing behind it.

"You want a man'ari eredar, one of the arch-enemies of your people, taken alive?" Sa'kesh inquired, slightly confused, after Atrophos had left them both behind.

"He killed the warlock after finding out he served the Burning Legion, and I couldn't banish him. I want to find out why" Kastina responded, as they both walked up to the portal, following in the void lord's path. "And judging from what you two said, there could be a chance that he has knowledge of the Legion's activities here. We can use whatever he knows to our advantage."

"Well... I do love to be on top of my enemies" Sa'kesh chuckled, as he started to walk faster, his loose bandages and hood flowing in the wind. "All that would matter now is getting him to talk..."


End file.
